12/25 Last Day at Myakka

I went on a last bike ride today and took some photos.  I love the roadway down to the lake because it is so typical of the scenery around here:

Saw some folks looking into the trees down by the lake with binoculars.  There wer these two adult bald eagles sitting at the very top.

In spite of today being Christmas Day, the park was very crowded.  There are only a handful of empty spots in the three campgrounds, and there were a lot of people who had just driven in for the day.  It seems strange to go to a park for Christmas, but a lot of people have this time off and are here from out of town.  Some others were local and said they had come for a walk and to see birds.

One of the reasons I wanted to get out today was to check on the resurrection fern.  As I posted a few days ago, these plants dry up in dry weather, but  as soon as it rains, they perk up and "resurrect" themselves.  We had a heavy rain four days ago and a lighter rain yesterday.  I found this tree down by the lake, and indeed, the resurrection fern was green and looked alive:

 

I rode down farther to a bird walk, or a boardwalk, that went over the marshy end of the lake.  Here is what I saw.  Here is the boardwalk and a picture of me resting from the longest part of my bike ride:

 

And here were a pair of deer:

 

And finally some white pelicans and a couple of great blue herons across the lake.  There were some ducks and terns nearer, but it was impossible to identify them because of the grasses hiding them.